The Malik Report

It All Ends Here: After 1,140 regular-season games and three playoff rounds, only the Grand Rapids Griffins and Syracuse Crunch are left standing, and they will battle for the Calder Cup after winning their respective conferences. The Griffins advanced to the Calder Cup Finals after defeating the No. 5 Oklahoma City Barons in a thrilling seven-game series, capped off with a wild 5-4 victory at Van Andel Arena on June 5. The third-seeded Griffins, who won the Robert W. Clarke Trophy as Western Conference playoff champions, also defeated No. 6 Houston in five games and No. 2 Toronto in six games. Fellow third seed Syracuse beat the same seeds in sequence: No. 6 Portland (3-0), No. 2 Springfield (4-0) and No. 5 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (4-1) to capture Richard F. Canning Trophy as champions of the Eastern Conference.

The Grand Rapids Griffins begin their Calder Cup Final series against the Syracuse Crunch this evening (7 PM EDT on http://www.AHLLive.com--you have to register to watch the games but you don't have to fill out credit card info; Game 2 takes place tomorrow night at 6 PM EDT, and the series shifts to Grand Rapids for three games starting next Wednesday), and to some extent, the Red Wings' management hopes that the Griffins players' progress complicates their off-season plans...

But there's no doubt that the fact that full-time Red Wings-to-be Gustav Nyquist, Joakim Andersson and Danny DeKeyser (who's been cleared to play and will play tonight) have taken part in 2 NHL playoff rounds and will have taken part in 2 more at the AHL level is "a good thing," as Wings GM Ken Holland told the Detroit News's Ted Kulfan:

Via RedWingsFeed, the Detroit News's Mike Martindale reports that the long-standing legal feud between the Howe family and Del Reddy, the manager of Gordie and Colleen Howe's business interests during the time that Colleen was battling Pick's Disease, has reached the courtoom in a surprising second iteration:

Attorneys faced off Friday in Judge Leo Bowman's courtroom in the civil case. Attorney Steven Matta said Howe, his son Mark and their Power Play International Co. have suffered well into "seven figure" damages in the destruction of personal property that had been ordered returned to Howe.

The defendants' attorney, Anthony Randazzo, said such claims are baseless and the lawsuit is being driven by Howe's celebrity and a personal "vendetta" by Mark Howe against former business managers Del Reddy and Aaron Howard because they resigned without notice.

Reddy's father, Michael Reddy, and their Immortal Investments Co. are also named as defendants.

When the Canadian Men's hockey team takes the ice at the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, they will have some familiar faces behind the bench.

TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com is reporting that Detroit Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock, the man that led Canada to gold at the Vancouver 2010 Games, will once again be the team's bench boss.

LeBrun is also reporting that St. Louis Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock and former Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff will return as associate coaches.

The staff will be rounded out by Boston Bruins head coach Claude Julien.

Babcock captured the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008; he also coached Canada to gold at the 1997 and 2004 IIHF World Championships.

MLive's Ansar Khan spoke to soon-to-be-ex-Red Wing Ian White during locker room clean-out day, and noted that Wings coach Mike Babcock held no ill will toward a player who lost the coaches and management staff's trust when he followed up the, "I haven't asked for a trade yet, but my agent and I have talked to the team" spiel with poor play...But White made it known that he's officially outta here while speaking with the Free Press's Helene St. James as well...

White didn’t appear in any playoff games, and hadn’t played since April 7. “It’s somewhat doubtful they’re going to bring back a guy who’s not going to play,” White said. “Probably the most unfortunate part of our business is moving around all the time, switching teams. I loved playing here.”

St. James reveals that White, who bounced around from Toronto to Calgary, Carolina, San Jose and then Detroit over the year-and-a-half prior to signing with the Wings, may have dug his own hole in matching Jimmy Devellano's tale of cattle and ranchers with a lockout jab of his own:

One of the most vocal critics of commissioner Gary Bettman during last fall’s labor dispute, White’s comment in November that, “I personally think he’s an idiot,” did not go over well with the Wings organization, with the prevalent feeling one of distaste that White’s name-calling reflected poorly on the club.

Grand Rapids Griffins coach Jeff Blashill told the Syracuse Post-Standard's Lindsay Kramer that his team appeared to have a case of heavy legs one day after a 10-hour bus ride to Syracuse, NY and two days removed from their Game 7 win over Oklahoma City in the AHL's Western Conference Final...

Blashill was not pleased with his team's first practice in the War Memorial on Friday, but wrote it off to a long bus ride from Grand Rapids the day before.

"I didn't think the practice was very good,'' he said. "We had a long, long travel day yesterday. The energy level today was the guys want to play tomorrow.''

But the Griffins recieved good news in the personnel department. Danny DeKeyser has proclaimed himself ready to play after his first full practice with the team (he practiced with the Wings during their series against Chicago):

As I said in the overnight report, there's no doubt that hockey fans have long, grudge-holding memories, and perhaps it's all but inevitable that Roy and Lemieux will battle it out for the "championship." As many Red Wings fans have suggested, it's sad that the Wings are moving East the summer before Roy brings rants and melt-downs to the Avs' bench as the team's coach.

Updated 2x with interviews with Francis Pare and Gustav Nyquist at 11:55 AM: When the Grand Rapids Griffins begin their Calder Cup Final series against the Syracuse Crunch tomorrow (7 PM EDT on AHLLive.com), the Red Wings' top prospects...Won't necessarily be taking part in the equivalent of NHL playoff hockey, but battling for a championship against a Crunch roster largely comprised of last year's Calder Cup-winning Norfolk Admirals is a huge challenge.

Wings GM Ken Holland told MLive's Ansar Khan that the Wings are very happy that a line-and-defensive-pair's worth of NHL players (see: Joakim Andersson, Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Brian Lashoff and Danny DeKeyser) and the team's top prospects are playing into June:

Now we have something of a timeline as to when Red Wings fans might want to be a fly on the wall at Joe Louis Arena. The Wings' coaches and front office will be very busy over the next couple of weeks, and GM Ken Holland told the CBC's Rob Pizzo and David Amber that the team will hold its pro-and-amateur-scouts-and-coaches' powwow for three days sometime next week, preparing for both the draft, attempts to re-sign the team's UFA's and RFA's-to-be and free agency...

About The Malik Report

The Malik Report is a destination for all things Red Wings-related. I offer biased, perhaps unprofessional-at-times and verbose coverage of my favorite team, their prospects and developmental affiliates. I've joined the Kukla's Korner family with five years of blogging under my belt, and I hope you'll find almost everything you need to follow your Red Wings at a place where all opinions are created equal and we're all friends, talking about hockey and the team we love to follow.